


flat affect

by orphan_account



Series: the autistic leanings of the bau [2]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Autism, Autistic!Aaron, Autistic!Garcia, Autistic!Hotch, Autistic!Penelope, autistic hc, autistic headcanon, autistic!Reid, autistic!spencer, slight angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-23 13:59:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15607815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: aaron never really knew how other people worked.





	1. Chapter 1

\- the first time aaron hears the word "autistic" it's being shouted at him by children in the schoolyard who are bigger than him. he can't look them in the eyes because eye contact is painful to him, but he looks at the bridges of their noses and tries to forget that they're laughing at him, and that they probably always have. what they call him to his face is always more hurtful than what they call him behind his back because they want to see just how much aaron can take before he starts to cry. it's like a game of "whoever makes the freak kid make a face first wins fifty points (and bonus points for punching him less than five times in the process)". one punch (for never using his face) and another (for "always looking like a stick's up where the sun don't shine") and another (just because). aaron wasn't aware of needing to be fixed. he'd read up on eugenics and he dearly hoped he didn't need to be _fixed_. he'd just come to school to read his books and keep to himself. it wasn't his fault that he attracted negative attention like flies to a bad smell.

-aaron was confused, left to his own devices after the teachers had spotted the bullying and dragged the perpetrators away from him. he's dealt with worse at the hands of his father but he appreciated the sentiment behind the teachers not leaving him to be beaten until everyone was satisfied. taking out his book on eugenics again, he re-reads it, liking the familiar feel of the words and of the page and the cover that he'd put into and taken out of his school bag so many times that the edges were slightly rounded. the month before, he'd taken back every book on the subject of eugenics out of the library. he'd renewed them, not wanting to give the fountains of information back to the establishment. his overwhelming, insatiable thirst for knowledge overtook his life despite his age and the rather bleak subject manner. aaron rocked back and forth in the corner of an empty classroom with the lights turned down for the rest of the school day after he'd finished his book. nobody noticed he was gone. when the bell rang, he clenched and unclenched his hands, liking the feeling of his nails digging into his hands.

\- aaron's never been known for bring expressive or particularly appreciating breaks in his routine. it's always in the order: wake up, shower, get dressed, breakfast, leave for work, come back from work, look over files, sleep. he has multiple copies of the same suits and his meals are always the same if he can help it, right down to the brand he bought. routine breaks are catastrophic and every time one happens, it pushes him closer to a shutdown (not that he'd ever tell anyone that). sometimes it gets so bad that he feels like the world is ending when all that really triggered the waves of harah emotion was his pen running out and the specific stationery store where he got that specific pen not being open. he sits on his right hand when he gets anxious, leaving his left one free to write with. aaron loves pressure stims.

\- when he gets overwhelmed by the harsh complexity of life, aaron just needs to crawl into the nearest small space possible without being seen by anyone. the ethics of his job combined with the politics creates too many conflicting emotions and sometimes he finds himself unconsciously pulling his own hair out in an attempt to make it all stop. he takes off his tie but leaves his shirt tucked in for the slight pressure stim as he grips his knees close to his chest, rocking back and forth. he's been doing this ever since he was a kid. he scouts out the rooms or offices that are usually empty at any given time and uses them to fall apart in. he likes the dark. it helps him focus on not focusing. when his world is ending, aaron just lets himself be unexpressive, revelling in not having to force a smile when it was deemed socially mandatory to. he lets his tears simply roll down his face without feeling the need to sob or frown or show any other visible sound of sadness.

\- aaron always liked the black and white of the law. he thinks it's why he studied it in the first place. there's not much room for interpretation except for the fact that morally good acts are good and morally bad acts are bad. he got so high up on the hierarchical ladder in the law firms he'd worked in because he was passionate at what he did, even though he never showed it. he hates being his father's son, so he moved to seattle from carolina so that he could start afresh with nobody giving him any shortcuts just becuse of his last name. he prefers to take the long way up. he prefers to have people doubt him and he prefers the debates and having to reference court cases becaude it makes him feel alive when he's ranting about what he's been studying so hard for. he's read and re read all his law textbooks until most of the words he spoke were directly lifted from them. his echolalia makes each book special, as there were bound to be a few phrases that would be repeated in court and at home in aaron's spare time. he repeats words that aren't his own because he wants to and to fill up the huge gap left by the silence. being around so many people had become to ingrained into his routine that whenever nobody was speaking, he becomes uneasy. 

-when aaron goes nonverbal (which isn't often), he does and redoes his tie, making it swim between his fingers and twirling it. for the sake of the team, he usually tries to contain himself to his designated empty office but sometimes luck just isn't on his side. usually, he stalks off to his car if he's in the precinct and messages someone saying that he needs quiet to work a certain part of the case. if he's out on the field, he taps out by pointing to his ear and forcing a grimace. when he's finally alone, he stares at a fixed point in the distance, unmoving and unspeaking until he regains his ability to verbalise.  


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey!!! i took this chapter down to edit it last night and i'm so much happier with how this one is structured. i've added loads of commentary and i think that i've done well!! you can choose to read this or not but if you decide to: enjoy!!!

-aaron doesn't have meltdowns very often; he usually implodes rather than explodes, leaving his team and loved ones to worry for him (not that he was aware they were even worried most of the time- he never really was good at reading emotions). more than almost anything else, aaron was confused by societal expectations and close relationships, so he overcompensates by being the best unit chief he can be and by presenting as overly aggressive and "alpha". he doesn't know how to deal with his own standings in the food chain so whenever someone asks him for advice, he usually shuts down and just gives advice that he got from a television show or a movie of some sort. over time, though, he learns that what most people want when they're distressed is someone who listens, not advice. when he realises that, some things start making sense.

-when aaron does have meltdowns, they're messy and usually triggered by too many strong or conflicting emotions rather than the external environment. he punches walls and clears the contents of his desk off with flying hands and he'll kick and cry and wail. he never tells anyone when he's had them and the knowledge that aaron's autistic is on a strict "need to know" basis because he's partly ashamed and partly reluctant for any of the higher ups who specialise in politics to have leverage over him. he deals with things on his own, and he's perfectly fine with that (until he needs help more than almost anything else but just doesn't know who or how to ask for it).

-because he's been acting like a neurotypical man for as long as he's had a career in the bureau, aaron's learned how to conceal stims in the activities that he does every day and that nobody would question. he stimmed by clicking his pen or clenching his fists when other people were around, for example. once or twice he'd gone to penelope's lair/office to ask for "those little things you squash in your hands that are like a stress ball but not really." his eyes hurt from the fairylights combined with the otherwise darkness of the room. he'd switched on the light, and only then did she see the tears that were threatening to spill over. she handed him a squish and a sympathetic look as her usually apathetic boss looked unhinged and on the brink of completely losing it. he'd gome back to his office and kneaded the cat shaped "squish" for a minute, just staring at it in his hands until he got used to the feeling. after a particularly draining case, she'd bought him a squish in the shape of a strawberry and left it on his desk with a note saying that he could keep it. aaron in that moment realised how much penelope was the glue that held everyone together.

-aaron tries to understand spencer and penelope by working with the largest common denominator they have: autism. he's given up on trying to understand the rest of his team, feeling that all that's within his capabilities is to constantly be the butt of a joke when he wasn't in earshot. he doesn't resent them for it (he is their boss, after all) but he knows the small flinches and grimaces that come with feeling too much or with waking up feeling like the whole world was somehow wrong. spencer looks to him for guidance. not as much or as obviously as he did in his early years of the bureau, but it was still there. penelope looks to him to make sure everyone gets out of every case as uninjured as possible. honestly, if (heaven forbid) a team member dies, it's not h.r. aaron's worried about, it's penelope and her too big heart. he understands their autistic traits and could try to help but that's all he could really understand at the end of the day. traits. aaron was never really good at understanding people. he'd filed away both of their tics and stims when they joined the team so he could help them whenever he could.

-help comes in aaron's own unconventional way. he usually orders spencer to stay behind at quantico on a case or sends him to do a task like completing the geographical profile that didn't require him to be out among the noise. even if aaron doesn't always see or hear about it, spencer's always grateful for the fact that he and aaron apparently have some form of psychic connection that told him which days were bad days.

-with penelope, he always makes sure to call her whenever he had the time while away if he knew she was spiralling. he also emailed her cute cat videos as well because he knew she liked those. sometimes he spends up to an hour trying to find the right one to send with "that's you" as a caption. he feels odd while doing it but from the way that penelope cheers up by the time he next calls her, he knew he had to be doing something right.

-the "flat affect" that he usually sports helps while interrogating unsubs. because he usually has to make a conscious effort to conjure a facial expression, he finds it easy to turn off and be himself while interrogating, never having a tell and never showing disgust or fear, which is exactly what some of those people wanted. he also loves the analysis involved in profiling. taking things or concepts apart and looking at them from different angles comes easily to him, so much so that sometimes he feels that no matter what, his loyalties would lie in working with law enforcement, solving crime. black and white are opposite and seperate and he can dissect a perpetrator's life and psychology with ease. it gives him a sense of power that he never really quite gets anywhere else. he holds onto that power and keeps it until it's rotten and he needs to solve the next crime.

**Author's Note:**

> hey!!! hit me up at @gayreids on tumblr and have a nice day!!!


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